Our 2100 mile trip retracing the route of the Klondike Gold Rush

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Day 35 … they are still going …

It is 12:45 am (California time) and they are still going. They started at 3:45 am yesterday. That is 21 hours straight. The live track messages show that they’ve spent the entire time on water, they did not get to the shore, not even once.

Imre and Peter only have another week or so left. By the 18th of July they need to transform back into two Silicon Valley computer guys. So now they paddle and paddle whenever the weather permits, even if it means 21 consecutive hours on the water, so that they can accomplish their goal: to reach the Bering Sea.

Yesterday father and son took a short day because they were hit by another storm, and they knew they had to wait for calm weather before tackling Devil’s Elbow.

We looked up Devil’s Elbow in “The Book” (Paddling the Yukon River and its Tributaries by Dan Maclean) which is the main source of information for both this trip and Imre’s previous Yukon adventure. The Book says the following: “This is a nasty place to get caught in a storm. The bending river boils up strange currents and there are few places to pull to shore along the bluffs. Take the inside channel to avoid Devil’s Elbow. Be very cautious paddling through here: if the weather seems even slightly bad, just pull over and camp until it blows past.”

We felt relieved when the series of little track signs showed that they had left the dangerous area behind.